Wilson, William
Variant namesBiographical notes:
Epithet: of Add MS 35805
British Library Archives and Manuscripts Catalogue : Person : Description : ark:/81055/vdc_100000000354.0x00000a
William Wilson was the Labour Member of Parliament for Coventry South (later Coventry South East) from 1964-1983. He proposed the successful Divorce Law Reform Private Member's Bill in 1967.
From the guide to the Qualidata: William Wilson Divorce Law Reform Papers, c.1967-1968, (Modern Records Centre, University of Warwick Library)
Epithet: flour merchant, of Ayr
British Library Archives and Manuscripts Catalogue : Person : Description : ark:/81055/vdc_100000000354.0x000006
Epithet: witness of Wolley Ch xii.92
British Library Archives and Manuscripts Catalogue : Person : Description : ark:/81055/vdc_100000001084.0x00011b
Epithet: of Exeter
British Library Archives and Manuscripts Catalogue : Person : Description : ark:/81055/vdc_100000000354.0x000012
William Wilson was born in 1913 and qualified as a solicitor in 1939. He served in the army during the Second World War in North Africa, Italy and Greece and was demobilised in 1946. During the 1950s he fought several elections unsuccessfully as the Labour candidate in the Leamington and Warwick constituency. In 1964 he won the seat of Coventry South, which he represented until 1974. He was the MP for Coventry South East until his retirement from parliament in 1983. William Wilson was a member of the Commons Select Committee on Race Relations and Immigration from 1970-1979. He was also a member of Warwickshire County Council from 1958-1970 and he was re-elected to that body in 1972. He was the leader of the Labour group of Warwickshire County Council, 1972-1993. William Wilson retired as a solicitor in 1999.
From the guide to the Papers of William Wilson, circa 1960s-1970s, (Modern Records Centre, University of Warwick Library)
Epithet: of Coningsby
British Library Archives and Manuscripts Catalogue : Person : Description : ark:/81055/vdc_100000000354.0x00000f
Epithet: witness of Wolley Ch xii.91*
British Library Archives and Manuscripts Catalogue : Person : Description : ark:/81055/vdc_100000001084.0x00011a
Title: 2nd Baronet
British Library Archives and Manuscripts Catalogue : Person : Description : ark:/81055/vdc_100000001072.0x000271
Epithet: Curate of Toddington, county Bedfordshire
British Library Archives and Manuscripts Catalogue : Person : Description : ark:/81055/vdc_100000000354.0x000005
Epithet: of Croglein
British Library Archives and Manuscripts Catalogue : Person : Description : ark:/81055/vdc_100000000354.0x000010
Epithet: Curate of Petworth, county Sussex
British Library Archives and Manuscripts Catalogue : Person : Description : ark:/81055/vdc_100000000354.0x000004
Epithet: of Add MS 4322
British Library Archives and Manuscripts Catalogue : Person : Description : ark:/81055/vdc_100000000354.0x00000e
Epithet: Searcher at Quebec
British Library Archives and Manuscripts Catalogue : Person : Description : ark:/81055/vdc_100000000354.0x000015
Epithet: Master of the ship 'Pheasant.'
British Library Archives and Manuscripts Catalogue : Person : Description : ark:/81055/vdc_100000000354.0x000008
Title: 1st Baronet
British Library Archives and Manuscripts Catalogue : Person : Description : ark:/81055/vdc_100000001085.0x00019f
Epithet: of East Greenwich
British Library Archives and Manuscripts Catalogue : Person : Description : ark:/81055/vdc_100000000354.0x000011
From the guide to the William Wilson papers, 1848-1849, null, (State of Maryland and Historical Collections)
Wilson, William (1799-1871), botanist, was born on 7 June 1799 in Warrington, the second son of Thomas Wilson (d. 1820), a druggist. After attending a dame-school and receiving private tuition, he was educated at Prestbury grammar school and under Dr Reynolds at the dissenters'academy, Leaf Square, Manchester. Intending to pursue a career in law, he was articled to a firm of solicitors in Manchester, but overwork resulted in headaches and debilitating nervous illness. Outdoor exercise was recommended, in the course of which he acquired his love of botany, thus sharing an interest in natural history with his brother Hamlet.
In 1826 Wilson sent new and rare plants to James Edward Smith and to John Stevens Henslow, hoping to enter into specimen exchanges with the latter. Henslow introduced him to William Jackson Hooker, who was of major importance in encouraging Wilson to devote himself to botany. As a devout Congregationalist, Wilson underwent much soul-searching before deciding on a botanical vocation, which he was enabled to do thanks to a modest allowance from his mother. On several occasions he botanized with Hooker and with Glasgow students in the Scottish highlands. In 1829-30 he traveled in Ireland.
From this time Wilson devoted himself to the study of mosses, soon commanding widespread respect for his observational powers. Hooker relied heavily on Wilson's fieldwork. Wilson corresponded with leading European botanists but equally he sought and respected the collecting skills of working-men botanists in Lancashire and Yorkshire, such as Edward Hobson, John Martin, and John Nowell. Although Wilson disapproved of Sunday botanizing by these men, he firmly believed that 'disparity of circumstances' was no bar to 'intimacy' between botanists, as he explained in a letter to Edward Hobson (Wilson to Hobson, 24 March 1828, Hobson MSS). He helped classify and prepare American mosses collected by Thomas Drummond, to be sold in fascicules, and described mosses collected by Joseph Dalton Hooker when on the Erebus voyage and in India.
In 1846 Wilson agreed to produce a third edition of W. J. Hooker and Thomas Taylor's Muscologia Britannica. This work culminated in his Bryologia Britannica of 1855, so substantially a new work that Hooker argued for Wilson's name alone as author on the title page. Wilson sold sets of moss specimens to accompany his book. He never fulfilled his ambition of bringing out a second edition, which would have included over a hundred new species of mosses, and showed increasing impatience with those who challenged his authority in bryology.
Wilson was extremely neat, fastidious, and highly strung. He was pious, easily upset by Sabbath-breakers, and preferred solitude to society, although he did serve as president of the Warrington Natural History Society. He was a Liberal but not involved in politics. An avid letter-writer, he responded generously to the many requests for information and help that he received. His extensive correspondence was saved from destruction by James Kendrick. Though of modest independent means, at various times after his marriage to his widowed cousin Eliza Lane in 1836 he considered applying for botanical posts, and even emigration, to support his family. He suffered from digestive problems and was prone to bronchitis. He died of the latter complaint at his home, Paddington House near Warrington, on 3 April 1871, and was buried in the nonconformist burial-ground at Hill Cliff near Warrington.
From the guide to the Assorted papers from the Herbarium of William Wilson, 1826-1870, (The Manchester Museum)
Links to collections
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Subjects:
- Botanists
- Botany
- Bryology
- Bryophytes
- Divorce Law and legislation England
- Light House Board
- Meteorology
- Natural history
- Plant collectors
- Scientific publications
- Smithsonian Publications
Occupations:
Places:
- Easebourne, Sussex (as recorded)
- Sennen, Cornwall (as recorded)
- North Marden, Sussex (as recorded)
- East-Dean, Sussex (as recorded)
- Eyam, Derbyshire (as recorded)
- Harting, Sussex (as recorded)
- Lidney, Gloucestershire (as recorded)
- Lancing, Sussex (as recorded)
- East Preston, Sussex (as recorded)
- Farnley-Tyas, Yorkshire (as recorded)
- Oving, Sussex (as recorded)
- Brampton, Derbyshire (as recorded)
- Chichester, Sussex (as recorded)
- Greenwich, Kent (as recorded)
- Liverpool, Lancashire (as recorded)
- Berkshire, England (as recorded)
- Devonshire, England (as recorded)
- London, England (as recorded)
- Bosham, Sussex (as recorded)
- Stalybridge, Cheshire (as recorded)
- Canary Islands, Spain (as recorded)
- Worcester, Worcestershire (as recorded)
- Northamptonshire, England (as recorded)
- Scotland, Kingdom of, United Kingdom (as recorded)
- Iping, Sussex (as recorded)
- Duncton, Sussex (as recorded)
- Britton, Derbyshire (as recorded)
- Iona, Argyllshire (as recorded)
- Hereford, Herefordshire (as recorded)
- Lincolnshire, England (as recorded)
- Dunkirk, France (as recorded)
- Dalkey, Dublin (as recorded)
- Edinburgh, Scotland (as recorded)
- Leicestershire, England (as recorded)
- Fishbourne, Sussex (as recorded)
- Brewell, Yorkshire (as recorded)
- Chinley, Derbyshire (as recorded)
- Thakeham, Sussex (as recorded)
- Merston, Sussex (as recorded)
- Norwich, Norfolk (as recorded)
- Cowfold, Sussex (as recorded)
- Arundel, Sussex (as recorded)
- Herefordshire, England (as recorded)
- Sutton, Sussex (as recorded)
- Fernhurst, Sussex (as recorded)
- Goring, Sussex (as recorded)
- Cornwall, England (as recorded)
- Scotland, United Kingdom (as recorded)
- Chithurst, Sussex (as recorded)
- Suffolk, England (as recorded)
- Elsted, Sussex (as recorded)
- West Hampnett, Sussex (as recorded)
- Dover, Kent (as recorded)
- Climping, Sussex (as recorded)
- Abney, Derbyshire (as recorded)
- Little-Hampton, Sussex (as recorded)
- Selsey, Sussex (as recorded)
- Norfolk, England (as recorded)
- Findon, Sussex (as recorded)
- Burpham, Sussex (as recorded)
- Billinghurst, Sussex (as recorded)
- Doncaster, Yorkshire (as recorded)
- Broadwater, Sussex (as recorded)
- Eastover, Hampshire? (as recorded)
- Dorset, England (as recorded)
- Birmingham, Warwickshire (as recorded)
- Pulborough, Sussex (as recorded)
- Rudgwick, Sussex (as recorded)
- East Friesland, Germany (as recorded)
- Yorkshire, England (as recorded)
- Charlton, Kent (as recorded)
- Boxgrove, Sussex (as recorded)
- Bosterfeild, Derbyshire (as recorded)
- Ireland, Europe (as recorded)
- Wiltshire, England (as recorded)
- Alfreton, Derbyshire (as recorded)
- Tidsdale, Derbyshire (as recorded)
- Glossop, Derbyshire (as recorded)
- Fittleworth, Sussex (as recorded)
- Steyning, Sussex (as recorded)
- Somerset, England (as recorded)
- Crimond, Aberdeenshire (as recorded)
- Gloucestershire, England (as recorded)
- Buckinghamshire, England (as recorded)
- Jersey, Channel Islands (as recorded)
- Washington, Sussex (as recorded)
- Hunston, Sussex (as recorded)
- Petworth, Sussex (as recorded)
- Eyam, Derbyshire (as recorded)
- Hucklow, in Tideswell, Derbyshire (as recorded)
- Surinam, South America (as recorded)
- Minden, Westphalia (as recorded)
- Alnwick, Northumberland (as recorded)
- Bramber, Sussex (as recorded)
- Edsdale, Derbyshire (as recorded)
- Ford, Sussex (as recorded)
- Whittwell, Derbyshire (as recorded)
- Midhurst, Sussex (as recorded)
- Tillington, Sussex (as recorded)
- Marpoole, Cheshire (as recorded)
- Warminghurst, Sussex (as recorded)
- Asshington, Sussex (as recorded)
